If Your Mobile Phone Has a Case Read This ASAP!

Mobile phones are seven times dirtier than TOILET SEATS, finds new study (and those with leather cases are even filthier!)

Those in leather cases harbour the most bacteria, but even smartphones in wipe-clean plastic cases have more than six times the germs found on a lavatory seat, shares Daily mail.

Despite this, a survey of office workers found two in five take theirs into the bathroom of their workplace.

Company Initial Washroom Hygiene took swab samples from smartphones using a handheld device which lights up live microbes where they appear on a surface.

A toilet seat scanned this way shows up 220 bright spots where bacteria lurk but the average mobile phone had 1,479.

Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said: ‘Swabbing a smartphone is almost like checking your handkerchief for germs – you are likely to find them because of the close physical contact you have with this device several times a day.

‘There will be norovirus on phones at this time of year but the bugs on smartphones will probably be people’s own bacteria so the likelihood of passing on disease is low.

‘However it might be ill-advised to pass smartphones around between people.’

The latest study looked at 50 phones, recording the highest bacteria reading for a smartphone in a leather case, which was also a wallet, and showed up almost 17 times the amount of bacteria on a toilet seat.

The average for a plastic case was 1,454, which is almost seven times the reading for toilet seat germs.

Experts believe phones become so dirty because they are taken into the bathroom, so are exposed to the same germs as lavatory handles and seats.

A survey of 2,000 people by Initial Washroom Hygiene found 40 per cent of people admitted using their smartphone while in the bathroom at work.

But only 20 per cent cleaned their phone after taking it with them into the toilet.

Mine stayed in my bag at work. It was only used for medical emergency calls back then. My Mum was elderly and taken to hospital quite regularly at one stage. When I left I was often asked how I could be contacted. My reply was my home phone when I got home. The response I got was “don’t you have a mobile phone”. That was the only reason I got my original one. Even now I don’t use my mobile phone as much as most people do. It is prepaid $30.00 for 60 days and balance is rolled over. I get free calls and texts to others with the same company as other family members use. I have relatives who live several hours away so one of us calls the other about once a week or fortnight.

And this is why I wipe my phone down with antibacterial wipes weekly. *shudder* why anyone would take their phone into any bathroom with them is beyond me. I don’t even like keeping my toothbrush in mine and it’s spotless.